Agenda and minutes

1.1  Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Spence and David and for lateness from Cllr Snell.

1.2  Apologies were also received from: Anne Canning, Group Director CACH, LBH); Richard Fradgley Director of Integrated Care, ELFT and Eugene Jones, Director of Strategic Transformation, ELFT.

2.1  The Chair stated that there would be an urgent item to be taken under AOB comprising an update from the Director of Public Health on the Covid-19 response in the borough.

3.1  There were none.

4.1  The Chair stated that this special meeting had been called at short notice to consider a proposal from East London NHS Foundation Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust and City and Hackney CCG concerning the urgent plans to develop COVID-19 resilient services at Mile End Hospital, including relocation of the inpatient dementia assessment services to East Ham Care Centre.

4.2  Members’ gave consideration to a report from Eugene Jones (Director of Service Transformation, ELFT) which had been published in a Supplementary Agenda.

4.3  The Chair stated that both Eugene Jones and also Richard Fradgley (Director of Integrated Care) from ELFT had had to give apologies as they were on annual leave but he welcomed to the meeting the following:

Dr Waleed Fawzi (WF), Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lead for Older People Mental Health at ELFT

Edwin Ndlovu (EN), Director of Operations, ELFT

Neil Ashman (NA), Chair of the Medicine Board and Outpatient Transformation, Barts Health NHS Trust

Dan Burningham (DB), Programme Director Mental Health, City & Hackney CCG

David Maher (DM), MD, City & Hackney CCG

He added that Commission Members were well aware of the sites and he had visited Mile End in particular on 3 occasions on site visits although the Commission does now have some new members who would not be familiar with them. 

4.4  EN thanked the Commission for the opportunity to present this proposal at short notice noting that the Columbia Ward move had come to the Commission previously.  The plan was to relocate 21 older adult mental health beds to East Ham Care Centre as part of system wide Covid-19 mitigation plans.  This would be an interim move and would ensure the clinic at Mile End for treating those shielding for some time could be set up as coded ‘Green’ or Covid-safe.  The users of those out -patient services would be people identified as high risk or clinically vulnerable.  The older adult mental health inpatients at issue here would be going to Cazubon Ward at East Ham Care Centre which is currently empty but has 23 beds.  Currently there were only 13 on Columbia Ward and 3 of those were from City and Hackney.  It had been necessary to speak to patients, family and staff/carers at a rapid pace and to forego the usual consultation processes because of urgency of the move.  They have again gone through the transport implications for the patients, families and carers.  One of the key advantages of the move would be that there would now be a critical mass of patients at EHCC with both physical and mental health care issues so they would be able to receive a more holistic offer.  In terms of triage the main adult ward for this, Leadenhall, would remain at Mile End.  This ward does pre-assessment.  Once they’ve identified that patients have organic mental health conditions they would be moved to Columbia.  By having all of these moved from Columbia and co-located at EHCC they can offer a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1  Members gave consideration to the draft minutes of the meeting held on 9 July 2020 and the matters arising.

6.1  Members noted the updated work programme for the year.  The Chair stated that an element of flexibility was being kept in the planning but that a further update on the Covid-19 test and trace issue would be on the agenda for September.

7.1  The Chair stated that there was one urgent item under AOB.  He had requested the Director of Public Health to provide another verbal update on the Covid-19 numbers and the test and trace situation in Hackney and he welcomed Dr Sandra Husbands (SH) (Director of Public Health) to the meeting. 

7.2  The Chair stated that he noted the progress on the new Covid-19 dashboard and noted that Hackney had more cases than anywhere else in London.  There had been 97 reported cases in the last two weeks and wanted to know if it had increased dramatically because of the additional mobile testing.  He also wanted to know the percentage infection level within the Charedi community, whether the community was fully aware it was high and what stress testing the local Public Health team were doing with PHE on what the next steps needed to be.

7.3  SH stated that she would give an overview on infection rates and numbers in Hackney and what was being done.  Members’ gave consideration to a tabled slide presentation and she took Members through it in detail.

7.4  SH stated that Hackney didn’t have the highest rate in London but rather had the highest rate of increase.  920 confirmed cases had been logged to date.  During each of the 14 day counting periods the numbers had fluctuated.  The reason for this was twofold.  With PHE they looked at the recent period and at the baseline period early on in pandemic and made a calculation as to whether the rate was more or less than they would have expected. The rate of increase has been far more than expected in the past two weeks. 

7.5  She explained that that day there had been 13 new cases reported which had been the highest increase in a number of weeks and most likely related to the Mobile Testing Unit work in Stamford Hill on the previous Sunday.  They’ve had the highest increase of any London borough in the previous fortnight.  But to put this in context however she compared Hackney to Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest and Barnet but also nationally to Blackburn with Darwen, where they’ve had to take some extra measures, and with Leicester where three’s been a significant problem, but which is now on the way down.  She added that the London average was 400 cases.

7.6  She described the analysis being done from the national dashboard which counted rates per 100k population.  From 11 May when lockdown measures had eased cases locally had tended to be younger.  Also, a number of household clusters in N16 area had been identified.  From 11 May to 28 July 91 additional cases and 42% of those (i.e. 95) had been in the N16 area.  Of those 95 cases in Stamford Hill area a fair proportion were household clusters associated with c. 2 households.  A significant number were single cases not associated with any household or setting.

7.7  The Chair asked whether the analysis points  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.